Rebel Shiv Sena minister Eknath Shinde on Thursday said that the meeting called by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray at 5 pm was ‘legally invalid,’ after party’s chief whip, Sunil Prabhu issued a letter to all party legislators to be present at 5 pm, failing which their membership from the party will be cancelled.
“Shiv Sena MLA Shri Bharat Gogavale has been appointed as the Chief Representative of Shiv Sena Legislature. The reason is that the orders issued by Mr. Sunil Prabhu regarding today’s meeting of MLAs are legally invalid,” reads a rough translation of the tweet put put by Shinde in Marathi.
Earlier, Prabhu had written a letter to all party legislators, while demanding their presence at a meeting called by the party. The letter further stated that if any MLA failed to attend the meeting without any prior permission, then it will be understood that the member has decided to quit the party on his own. The letter also warned that if someone skipped the meeting without any prior permission, then stern action will be initiated against them, while cancelling their membership from the party as per the constitution.
Earlier in the day, Shinde, while claiming the support of 46 legislators, told news agency ANI, “Right now we have 46 MLAs with us, including 6-7 Independent MLAs. Rest of them are Shiv Sena MLAs. This number will rise in the time to come. As of now we have neither received any proposal from BJP nor are we holding any talks with them.”